Thames Water has just told more than 10 million customers to stop using their hosepipes. The ban started at 00:01 on Thursday, 23 July 2026. So why did Britain’s biggest water company pull this lever, who’s actually exempt, and what does it mean for you? This piece covers the original announcement plus the exemption rules … Read more
Update, July 20, 2026: The final has been played. Spain beat Argentina 1-0 in extra time to win their second World Cup title. For the full breakdown of the disallowed goal and Argentina’s red card, see our final recap: Why was Spain’s goal disallowed? The original preview is preserved below for context. Spain and Argentina … Read more
On Monday, Andy Burnham moves into 10 Downing Street as Britain’s seventh prime minister in a decade. On the same weekend, a report landed calling on him to do something no UK government has seriously attempted: let regional mayors keep a slice of the income tax raised in their own patch. Burnham was confirmed as … Read more
At 7:48 a.m. on Friday, July 17, the ground shifted off the coast of Chiapas, Mexico. Within seconds, a magnitude 7.3 earthquake was rattling buildings as far away as Mexico City and Guatemala City. A tsunami advisory went up for the Pacific coasts of Mexico and Guatemala. Two hours later, it was lifted. No deaths … Read more
President Donald Trump says China stole 220 million US voter files, calling it the largest election-data breach in American history. He made the China voter files claim in a primetime address from the White House on July 16, 2026. The president says the theft started in the 2020 election cycle. He also says intelligence officials … Read more
Why did senators introduce the Stop Transnational Repression Act? Because U.S. law has never actually defined the crime it targets. Sens. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and John Curtis (R-UT) introduced the bipartisan bill (S.4967) on July 14, 2026, to create the first federal definition of “transnational repression” and add up to 10 years to prison sentences … Read more
A wildfire in southern Spain has become one of the deadliest the country has ever recorded. At least 12 people have died and 23 more are unaccounted for after flames tore through the Almería region in a matter of hours. Why did these Spain wildfires spread so fast, and why did so many people lose … Read more
President Trump spent the NATO summit in Ankara demanding that the United States cut off all trade with Spain and renewing his call for the U.S. to take control of Greenland. So why did a summit built to project unity turn into a public dressing-down of one ally, and why did Trump revive a territorial … Read more
In August 2024, a Falun Gong practitioner named Cheng Pei Ming became the first known survivor of China’s organ harvesting system. Two years later, researchers gathered in Montreal delivered an even more troubling update: the practice didn’t stay contained to Falun Gong practitioners. It spread to a second, much larger group — Uyghurs — and … Read more
Ali Khamenei died on February 28, 2026, killed alongside his top military command in a joint US-Israeli strike on his Tehran compound — an opening blow covered in detail in our 100-day retrospective on the Iran war. His funeral did not begin until July 4 — more than 125 days later. In a Shia tradition … Read more